Randoms from the Month of MARS!

"Hope everybody out there's liking my month. . ."

Hi folks.

Oddly enough, despite the fact that March was really, really insane for our family - what with another Daddy/Daughter dance, St. Patrick's Day, Spring Break, a Clearwater vacation, a grandparent visit, and a moving truck of crap being loaded and driven back up to Michigan - there's surprisingly little to show for our monthly installment of Random for the month.

I attribute this to the fact that whenever we weren't working, or otherwise occupied in the aforementioned undertakings, we were usually sitting around the house and staring at a wall, decompressing from crazy.

Check it out:

Alayna poses with some of the boxes I cleared out of the back patio.  As you can see, it's kinda been a lack-luster Fall/Winter season for craft beer samplers (I had better luck with sixers and big bottles, but was nevertheless let down by the larger boxes.)  Not looking forward to Spring's offerings. . .

This isn't' anything out of the ordinary, but I wanted to brag about the price - $11.99.  Seriously.  That's unheard of.

Kris and I refused to clean the girls' room for a week, and they counter-refused.  After a week, this is what we ended up with (eventually, the girls were forced to take care of it. . . I hate kids.)

Abby channels her inner Tyson.

Rainbow cake.  Just 'cause.

The girls help Kris with her Hippie Cake.  Not sure exactly how it works (what am I, a girl?), but they had a fun time doing it.

The vultures circle the stove.

Cakes don't bake fast enough.

One thing March brought about was the introduction of a new video game system for our Wii U I picked up for the girls - Disney Infinity.  This system - while somewhat of a money pit - requires you first purchase the game (generally in a starter set, which includes the game, a figure base, two power discs, and a few figures), and then you can buy different figures and power discs to customize and build your own worlds, games, and adventures.  I could go into a lot of detail, here, but it'd probably bore anyone who wasn't already considering purchasing this system themselves.  I'll just instead assure you that it's called 'Infinity' for a reason. . . it's like owning a cabinet full of different games in one.

Disney Infinity 1.0 (all these characters, discs and worlds for this series comprised the first wave, but work with the newer version I just bought the girls.)

Long story short, the girls love it.  The set I bought for them contained Stitch (from Lilo and Stitch) and Merida (from Pixar's Brave), along with two adventure discs and the figure base (see image at right.)  This was one of two starter sets for the updated 2.0 version (the others featured three of Marvel's Avengers, which I didn't think would go over as well for the girls.  

The interactive figure gameplay is what really sells it for Alayna and Abby; essentially, whenever you place a different figure (which each cost around $9 on Amazon. . . or $13 in a Toys R Us or Gamestop) on the base, they're instantly brought into the game and you can play as that character.  Each figure also unlocks a ton of in-game features and levels, which is cool.

Chaos.

What I like about this method of gameplay is that you can swap figures in and out of a level or world without having to reset or pause the game.  Considering how frequently little kids change their minds, this is extremely helpful - it's not uncommon for either girl to trade out their playable figure three or four times in a twenty-minute bout of playing.

Photo courtesy of the Cannonball.

Knowing Yours Truly, it should probably come to no great surprise that we didn't have a mere two figures for very long.  I bought a used Black Widow (Alayna's favorite superhero) for $5, and ended up buying Elsa off Amazon, so they had four.  Then, I found a hell of a deal on a lot of three Pirates of the Caribbean figures and their corresponding discs off ebay.

(We also bought them new figures for Easter, but we'll get to that come Easter time.)

Namaste.  Again, photo courtesy of Alayna.  Who else would take pictures of a kid in a bathroom doing yoga with the door closed?

(Enjoy the lilies in bloom pictures while they last, Internet - once they bloom you only have a couple weeks of awesome before they return to being all flaccid and gross.)

I hate my grass.  I will not miss it.

- Brian

April Updates

Yes, I'm fully well aware of the fact that we haven't been updating this thing in some time. . .

This month has been complete and utter madness, and outside of work we haven't really done all that much.  For Yours Truly, it's been the dreaded FCAT and all the prep work and adjustment that goes into that piece of s***.  It's honestly the worst time of year for educators down here, and as such I haven't even had the time to think about posting anything online in weeks.

But, since it's the end of the month now and we haven't thrown up anything in awhile, here's a little of what happened around our homestead in April.

Enjoy.

Lately Alayna's become a big fan of 'curly hair,' and since she inherited the straight hair of her forefathers,  Kris has to tightly braid her hair (while it's wet) before she goes to bed. . .

As you can see, Abby's more than a little jealous about all of this.

Done.

Mustaches are always hilarious.

Finished product. 

When this Daddy comes home from the bar, he brings balloons. . .

My second favorite room in the house.

. . . though it's constantly cluttered up with kids' crap.

Since the PowerWheel's battery has become quasi-dependable lately,  the girls' ride has more or less evolved into a piece of patio furniture.

Some Spring samplers I picked up from Knightly Spirits the other day.  Sam Adams usually delivers a pretty good variety, but all Blue Moon's stuff seems to taste the same. . . I don't know why I keep buying their seasonal varieties.

Hanging out, waiting for their clothes to dry after Abby decided to up and piss into the bin of stuffed animals. . .

Alayna, pretending to be a 'bride.'

SEGA!

The Houghs are now harvesting peaches.

The downside to owning a peach tree, evidently, is that you have to go out and check it nearly every day.  They ripen so fast that if you forget to periodically check the limbs, you find yourself picking up rotten fruit off the ground on a regular basis.

Stowaways found in my briefcase at work. 

The Cannonball has been borderline obsessed with the 1993 Mighty Morphin Power Rangers lately.  It is arguably the worst show ever made in the history of television.  I stand by this statement.

- Brian

Open Season

Happy Pre-Holidays, folks.

As I continue to make that long, depressing march towards my 40s, my taste for the finer things in life has been in a constant state of getting awesomer.  Personally, I like to think I'm evolving into a man of considerable class.  No more Christmas lights hanging up in the bathroom, no more action figures in the Study, and no more watered-down, headache-inducing 'coffees.'

Pretty much.

Ages ago, back at the turn of the millenia, a young, more adventurous, and arguably way cooler Brian J. Hough could be found ambling down the hallowed streets of Western Michigan University,  pounding back full cases of Natural Ice and bottom shelf whiskey.

. . .and probably wearing some weird-ass hat.

Daddy's Coffee

Yours Truly has surely come a long way over the last ten years.  These days, I like to consider myself more of gentleman when it comes to boozification; I no longer drink bottle-shelf whiskey (I've gradually made my way to third-from-the-bottom shelf whiskey, thank you), and have become very fond of craft beer over the last few years.

(. . . though I still own plenty of weird hats.)

That's not to say I don't mind partaking in domestic beers regularly, though - Miller Lite still seems to find its way onto the Hough's Grocery List on a weekly basis.  These days, however, I'm supplementing my pilsner intake with different styles of beer, and have made that very adult switchover from 'quantity' to 'quality.'

College Brian is surely rolling over in his soggy grave.

It definitely helps having a bad-ass liquor store nearby that specializes in stocking craft beers from small-scale breweries:

Knightly Spirits, which has become my home away from home over the last few years, is conveniently located about a mile from my house, and has a great selection of microbrews on hand.  They even have an exact, large-scale version of the knight statue that sits in my study standing guard outside their door.

If that isn't fate, I don't know what is.

Anyway, it's become routine for me to swing in there on Fridays on my way home from work and pick up a mix-and-match sixer of various beers.  For me, it's a way to sample different brews without having to invest in a six-pack of one particular beer (and at $10 - $14 per sixer, that is quite a risk for something that could turn out to be 'meh').

More recently-purchased Daddy's Coffee. . .

Now, what's glorious about this time of year is that, like it's seasonal predecessor Fall, Winter tends to unleash a barrage of beers specially-brewed for the season (no more pumpkin ales, or Octoberfest-themed selections, obviously).  For the Holidays, this means that various breweries offer 12-pack samplers of popular, short-run releases that appeal to novice armchair aficionados such as myself.  Check it out:

I've picked these up over the last two weeks. . .

This is definitely my favorite, featuring two of my favorites, Chocolate Bock and White Christmas.   Of course, the others aren't bad, either - Sam Adams knows his shit.

It took me a long time to track this one down, but finally found it at Target (surprisingly enough).  The Spiced Amber Ale and Belgian Pale Ale, while good, weren't great. . . so this one didn't live up to the hype.

Okay, this one I picked up for Kris (she was a big fan of the 'Chuck in college.)  The 802 is awesome.  Our 'Cider's Maker's Choice,' a seasonal, was 'Summer'. . . which, to me, was only so-so.

Initially on my Christmas list this year, I snatched this up off Amazon when it dropped down to 40% off.   Very well-rated, and I figured it was high-time I had a glass set that curtailed to my drinking habits.  HIGHLY recommend this set if you're in the market for some beer glasses. . .

Definitely looking forward to the holidays.

A couple months ago, I bought an app for my Android (though I'm pretty sure it's available for the iPhone as well) called Beer Journal.  While it lacks some of the fields more snobbish beer lovers out there might miss (specifying the amount of hops used, rating the aroma, etc.), it's pretty user-friendly, and I find myself using this app on a frequent basis, whether that be at home, while visiting friends with the fam, or out at the bar with the guys.

This is really a no-brainer, seeing how it combines two of my obsessive-compulsive joys in life:  making lists and beer.

Menu screen.

One of the great things about this app is it allows you to upload pictures of the beers you sample, which helps when purchasing more in the future.

Okay, this wasn't taken from my phone, but you get the idea. . .

'Tis the season, folks - slainté!

- Brian